Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

This Ipsos survey confirms that Americans are still very much concerned about health care costs. What is perhaps of more interest here is what people think we should do about it.

There is still a sharp political divide on Obamacare with Republicans favoring repeal, Democrats favoring improving it, and Independents evenly divided. The divide seems to be based more on politics rather than policy.

The support for single payer seems to be about the same as other surveys have reported, though usually more Democrats than the 59% reported here are in support. Of note is that 44% of Republicans support single payer indicating that the single payer message should be targeted more broadly than just to progressives since there also is some significant support amongst conservatives for the concept.

What deserves special attention in this survey is the very strong support across the political spectrum for health care companies disclosing costs, lowering out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs, and passing drug discounts on to patients. Although some might suggest that this indicates that Americans prefer incremental change, it more likely reflects the fact that it is easier to express support for one single beneficial policy issue at a time.

The nation needs to hear repeatedly just a couple of the specific policy issues that make single payer the moral imperative. We should work on that message, especially regarding affordability. For those whose attention we gain, we can elaborate on the full package.